Candidates Look For Solid Turnout At Tuesday's Beach-Season Primary

Campaign stop

Daniela Altimari, hc

Charles Cottrell Buffum, Jr., left, talks with gubernatorial candidate John McKinney during McKinney's campaign stop Wednesday at Cottrell Brewing Co., a family-owned brewery in Pawcatuck.The brewery is in the same building that housed a printing press manufacturing company owned by Buffum's great-great grandfather, Calvert B. Cottrell.

Charles Cottrell Buffum, Jr., left, talks with gubernatorial candidate John McKinney during McKinney's campaign stop Wednesday at Cottrell Brewing Co., a family-owned brewery in Pawcatuck.The brewery is in the same building that housed a printing press manufacturing company owned by Buffum's great-great grandfather, Calvert B. Cottrell. (Daniela Altimari, hc)

CHRISTOPHER KEATING And JENNY WILSON, ckeating@courant.com

The middle of August is usually the time when vacationers think about heading to Block Island, Nantucket or a nearby beach.

Politics is not ordinarily the top issue on their minds.

But both Republican and Democratic candidates are scrambling in the final days before Tuesday's primary to battle against complacency and a potentially low turnout. History shows that primary turnouts in August have been similar to those in September under the old system, but no one is predicting that this year will be anything close to the epic U.S. Senate primary battle of Sen. Joe Lieberman vs. Ned Lamont in August 2006, which set the turnout record for Connecticut primaries at 43 percent.

Primary turnout is traditionally low in many races, but for the minority party in an August primary, get-out-the-vote drives can be even more difficult. When Democrat Dannel P. Malloy defeated Greenwich cable television executive Ned Lamont in August 2010 in the Democratic primary for governor, the turnout was only 25 percent.

For Republicans, who have roughly 23 percent of registered voters in a state that is largely dominated by unaffiliated voters and Democrats, the task is not easy.

For Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, who is facing Greenwich business executive Tom Foley on Tuesday in the Republican race for governor, heading to the Metro-North Commuter Railroad stations in lower Fairfield County has been a frequent stop in the past several weeks. Numerous politicians, particularly former U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, spread the word at the stations in Republican strongholds like Greenwich, New Canaan, and Darien.

"You start off at a sea of hundreds at a train station, and you know that only a portion of them are even eligible to vote in a primary," said McKinney, the son of a former congressman who also campaigned heavily on the same turf in the 1970s and 1980s. "Of that group, a smaller group is aware of the primary."

Unaffiliated voters have until Monday to switch their registrations and vote in the primary, but the deadline has passed for any Democrats to switch parties this close to the election.

McKinney said that, in the past week or so, he has noticed that people were becoming more aware of next week's vote.

When McKinney stopped in at Peter Suchy Jewelers during a small business tour in Stamford this week, he met the owner, who is a registered Republican. Suchy was asked if he was voting in the primary and responded, "I had not given it two seconds worth of thought." Suchy added: "I don't know. I will take a look, and I will evaluate it. … Honestly, I don't follow politics enough."

Suchy said McKinney's visit was "the only time that a governor's candidate has ever bothered to step foot through my door. … In and of itself that makes an impression."

But, "in meeting him for two minutes, all you can do is get a sense," Suchy said.

That was among the more successful stops of the small business tour — at least in reference to primary votes. McKinney spoke with Bill Morris, the owner of a UPS mailbox store next door to the jeweler in Stamford. Morris said McKinney's "got some good ideas, realizes there are problems with the economy" and is "looking for some sort of change."

But Morris is a registered Democrat.

The owner of a sporting goods retailer next door in the shopping center had a lively conversation with McKinney — but lives across the border, in New York State.

Matthew J. Hennessy, a longtime Democratic political operative, said that turnout in a primary can increase if voters are energized about a major issue, such as gun control in the Republican primary.

"Republicans who are moderate are split over whether Foley or McKinney is the better candidate,'' Hennessy said. "But when you look at who is intense, gun-rights supporters are going to be the most intense voters in this primary. Those gun-rights folks are going to play an oversized role. In the pool of Republicans, they are a smaller group, but they are organized through the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and the NRA.''

He added: "In our daily lives, we don't see them. But if you're familiar with guys who are going to the gun range, they are very, very interested in this particular primary. They do have an organization. The NRA is a very sophisticated organization. … Republicans usually need an ideological issue to turn out the voters. In this Republican primary, the margin is going to be built on by folks who are gun rights activists.''

The August primary stems from a federal court ruling in 2003 that found the old primary system unconstitutional. The old system — in which candidates had to secure a percentage of delegate support at formal party conventions to get onto primary ballots — was replaced in favor of one that allows anyone to obtain enough signatures to get on the ballot.

After considerable debate — and then-Gov. John G. Rowland's threat to veto a dual-date primary schedule that would have split state, congressional and legislative primaries between June and September — the legislature adopted the August primary for all parties.

Before the system changed in 2004, the last August primary in Connecticut had been in 1970, when Democrats held one for a state Senate seat, followed by a Republican primary in September. Shortly after that, the legislature, concerned about costs and confusion, changed the law to require that all primaries be held in September at that time.